Friday, October 9, 2009

Sen. Kay Baily Hutchison Joins the Fight

The Dallas Morning News reports that Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison has renewed her opposition to certain gun control measures in anticipation of a major case on the issue coming before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hutchison, a Republican, announced that she and other lawmakers would file a brief urging the high court to rule that Chicago's strict gun control ordinances violate an individual's right to keep and bear arms.

The upcoming test of limits on gun control laws follows last year's landmark District of Columbia vs. Heller decision, in which the Supreme Court affirmed that the Second Amendment applies to individuals. In that case, the court narrowly limited its decision to Washington.

Hutchison said she'd awaited an opportunity to apply the Heller ruling to states and local governments.

Lots of political maneuvering is going on these days, folks are taking sides. I have the feeling, though, that the pro-gun side is stronger - it's just my feeling.

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign commented that, "the Heller ruling says that outright bans are unconstitutional but reasonable gun control laws are acceptable."

"It's not that worrisome," Helmke said. "The court, in Heller, took the extremes off the table."

I'm not sure I understand that, do you? If the Supreme Court rules that handguns cannot be banned in the city of Chicago, wouldn't that be an "extreme" situation from the gun control standpoint? Wouldn't such a decision be a terrible setback for the gun control movement? I would think so. What's your opinion?

On the other hand, in spite of the conservative makeup of the Supreme Court and some of its recent past history concerning guns, what if the decision goes the other way? What if for the first time the Supremes write something against the modern accepted interpretation of the 2nd Amendment? Isn't it possible, as Mike Licht said yesterday that this has been a willful misinterpretation of the intent of the 2nd Amendment, and it's about to end?

10 comments:

Kay Bailey Hutchison is a contemptible opportunist, who picks whatever side she thinks is winning at the time. I'd much rather be linked to Iknadosian, Borgelt, and Allan (the Badger Guns owner) than her.

If the Supreme Court rules that handguns cannot be banned in the city of Chicago, wouldn't that be an "extreme" situation from the gun control standpoint? Wouldn't such a decision be a terrible setback for the gun control movement? I would think so. What's your opinion?

Congratulations--you're more of an extremist than Helmke is (Sugarmann would be proud). So in Mikeb-land, an outright ban of handguns--the overwhelmingly most popular choice for self-defense, would be "moderate," eh?

This is the first I've heard of the Constitutional scholar Mike Licht. Did you look at that piece (Guns and Grammar--pdf file)) he linked to? This is one of the justifications for rejecting an individual right to arms ownership:

Despite the gun lobby’s insistence on a long common law tradition supporting theindividual’s right to weapons, gun regulation has been a feature of English law since the14th century, when a series of Game Laws expressly restricted weapons ownership tomembers of the gentry who met thresholds of income and land ownership – guns were forthe wealthy, not the peasants or the lower middle class (Schwoerer 2000).

"See--restrictive gun laws are fine, even 14th century English law disarmed poor people." Actually, I guess that kind of attitude fits with condemning Badger guns for selling affordable handguns. Badger is wrong for arming all those nasty poor people, eh?

The Founding Fathers didn't get everything right, Mikeb--I have no problem acknowledging that. What mistakes they did make, though, were always in the rights they denied (blacks and women being superb examples), not in rights that they recognized improperly. The only corrections to make are the ones that increase recognition of rights.

Anon, just when I think you have hit intellectual bottom, you sink a little lower--congratulations on your ability to surprise me.

OK, Wasn't the Second Amendment supposed to protect the States from Federal encroachment on their laws? I mean wasn't part of the tyranny thing that there was "no taxation without representation" ? In other words, it wasn't the taxes, it was the local decision making.

Tyranny would be local legislation overturned by someone who is not a local citizen, in this case the federal government, or even more saliently the Cato institute using the legal system to overturn legislation. I thought conservatives hated that sort of thing.

Anyway, the gun laws in Chicago, as in DC, are dispised by people who are not citizens of those cities. Why should these properly legislated laws be overturned?

Because "these properly legislated laws" trample the Constitutionally guaranteed, fundamental human right of the individual to keep and bear arms. Fundamental human rights cannot be legitimately denied by any level of government--that's kinda the point of a fundamental human right.

Anyway, the gun laws in Chicago, as in DC, are dispised by people who are not citizens of those cities. Why should these properly legislated laws be overturned?

Because those laws infringe upon the Constitutional rights of American citizens.

Laws enacting poll taxes and literacy tests aimed at disenfranchising blacks were done at the local level and "properly legislated" That didn't make them any less of an infringement upon individual rights.

If a town in Louisiana passed a law making slavery legal would you consider it properly legislated and defend it?

Anyway, the gun laws in Chicago, as in DC, are dispised by people who are not citizens of those cities. Why should these properly legislated laws be overturned?

Hey, Mikeb--aren't you going to tell Laci about how you want U.S. gun laws to be "harmonized"? That would mean, of course, that Chicago and D.C. can't be going it alone with their own insanely draconian laws.